[PATCH sched-devel 3/7] cpuisol: Do not schedule workqueues on the isolated CPUs

[Max Krasnyansky]

This patch is addressing the use case when a high priority realtime (FIFO, RR) user-space
thread is using 100% CPU for extended periods of time. In which case kernel workqueue
threads do not get a chance to run and entire machine essentially hangs because other CPUs
are waiting for scheduled workqueues to flush.

This use case is perfectly valid if one is using a CPU as a dedicated engine
(crunching numbers, hard realtime, etc). Think of it as an SPE in the Cell processor.
Which is what CPU isolation enables in the first place.

Most kernel subsystems do not rely on the per CPU workqueues. In fact we already
have support for single threaded workqueues, this patch just makes it automatic.
As mentioned in the introductory email this functionality has been tested on a wide
range of full fledged systems (with IDE, SATA, USB, automount, NFS, NUMA, etc) in the
production environment.

The only feature (that I know of) that does not work when workqueue isolation is enabled is
OProfile. It does not result in crashes or instability, OProfile is just unable to collect
stats from the isolated CPUs. Hence this feature is marked as experimental.

There is zero overhead if workqueue isolation is disabled.

Signed-off-by: Max Krasnyansky <maxk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
 kernel/Kconfig.cpuisol |    9 +++++++++
 kernel/workqueue.c     |   30 +++++++++++++++++++++++-------
 2 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/Kconfig.cpuisol b/kernel/Kconfig.cpuisol
index e606477..81f1972 100644
--- a/kernel/Kconfig.cpuisol
+++ b/kernel/Kconfig.cpuisol
@@ -13,3 +13,12 @@ config CPUISOL
 	  
 	  This feature is useful for hard realtime and high performance applications.
 	  If unsure say 'N'.
+
+config CPUISOL_WORKQUEUE
+	bool "Do not schedule workqueues on the isolated CPUs (EXPERIMENTAL)"
+	depends on CPUISOL && EXPERIMENTAL
+	help
+	  In this option is enabled kernel will not schedule workqueues on the 
+	  isolated CPUs.
+	  Please note that at this point this feature is experimental. It brakes 
+	  certain things like OProfile that heavily rely on per cpu workqueues.
diff --git a/kernel/workqueue.c b/kernel/workqueue.c
index ff06611..f48e13c 100644
--- a/kernel/workqueue.c
+++ b/kernel/workqueue.c
@@ -35,6 +35,16 @@
 #include <linux/lockdep.h>
 
 /*
+ * Stub out cpu_isolated() if isolated CPUs are allowed to 
+ * run workqueues.
+ */
+#ifdef CONFIG_CPUISOL_WORKQUEUE
+#define cpu_unusable(cpu) cpu_isolated(cpu)
+#else
+#define cpu_unusable(cpu) (0)
+#endif
+
+/*
  * The per-CPU workqueue (if single thread, we always use the first
  * possible cpu).
  */
@@ -97,7 +107,7 @@ static const cpumask_t *wq_cpu_map(struct workqueue_struct *wq)
 static
 struct cpu_workqueue_struct *wq_per_cpu(struct workqueue_struct *wq, int cpu)
 {
-	if (unlikely(is_single_threaded(wq)))
+	if (unlikely(is_single_threaded(wq)) || cpu_unusable(cpu))
 		cpu = singlethread_cpu;
 	return per_cpu_ptr(wq->cpu_wq, cpu);
 }
@@ -229,9 +239,11 @@ int queue_delayed_work_on(int cpu, struct workqueue_struct *wq,
 		timer->data = (unsigned long)dwork;
 		timer->function = delayed_work_timer_fn;
 
-		if (unlikely(cpu >= 0))
+		if (unlikely(cpu >= 0)) {
+			if (cpu_unusable(cpu))
+				cpu = singlethread_cpu;
 			add_timer_on(timer, cpu);
-		else
+		} else
 			add_timer(timer);
 		ret = 1;
 	}
@@ -605,7 +617,8 @@ int schedule_on_each_cpu(work_func_t func)
 	get_online_cpus();
 	for_each_online_cpu(cpu) {
 		struct work_struct *work = per_cpu_ptr(works, cpu);
-
+		if (cpu_unusable(cpu))
+			continue;
 		INIT_WORK(work, func);
 		set_bit(WORK_STRUCT_PENDING, work_data_bits(work));
 		__queue_work(per_cpu_ptr(keventd_wq->cpu_wq, cpu), work);
@@ -754,7 +767,7 @@ struct workqueue_struct *__create_workqueue_key(const char *name,
 
 		for_each_possible_cpu(cpu) {
 			cwq = init_cpu_workqueue(wq, cpu);
-			if (err || !cpu_online(cpu))
+			if (err || !cpu_online(cpu) || cpu_unusable(cpu))
 				continue;
 			err = create_workqueue_thread(cwq, cpu);
 			start_workqueue_thread(cwq, cpu);
@@ -833,8 +846,11 @@ static int __devinit workqueue_cpu_callback(struct notifier_block *nfb,
 	struct cpu_workqueue_struct *cwq;
 	struct workqueue_struct *wq;
 
-	action &= ~CPU_TASKS_FROZEN;
+	if (cpu_unusable(cpu))
+		return NOTIFY_OK;
 
+	action &= ~CPU_TASKS_FROZEN;
+	
 	switch (action) {
 
 	case CPU_UP_PREPARE:
@@ -869,7 +885,7 @@ static int __devinit workqueue_cpu_callback(struct notifier_block *nfb,
 
 void __init init_workqueues(void)
 {
-	cpu_populated_map = cpu_online_map;
+	cpus_andnot(cpu_populated_map, cpu_online_map, cpu_isolated_map);
 	singlethread_cpu = first_cpu(cpu_possible_map);
 	cpu_singlethread_map = cpumask_of_cpu(singlethread_cpu);
 	hotcpu_notifier(workqueue_cpu_callback, 0);
-- 
1.5.4.1

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/